David Cameron last night drafted a Muslim and a former intelligence chief into his shadow cabinet in a reshuffle which demoted several controversial spokesmen and showed his sensitivity to bad headlines. Sayeeda Warsi, a Conservative party vice-chairman in her 30s, becomes the first Muslim member of the shadow cabinet as new spokesman for community cohesion. Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, in her 60s, joins as shadow security minister and national security adviser to Mr Cameron in the autumn of a career dominated by service in the Foreign Office.

Both women will be ennobled and reflect Mr Cameron's desire, like Gordon Brown, to bring in spokesmen and women from outside conventional boundaries.

"These changes strengthen the shadow cabinet team and harness new talent within the party as we prepare for the next general election," Mr Cameron said last night. "Two of the big challenges facing this country today are security and community cohesion and we now have two leading experts in these fields in Dame Pauline Neville-Jones and Sayeeda Warsi."

The Tory leader left his senior frontbench spokesmen in place and awarded George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, the title of campaign manager for the general election, a role he has played in practice for some time as Mr Cameron's most important political ally. Key centre-right figures William Hague and David Davis also stay in place.

Last week's Guardian/ICM poll put Labour ahead for the first time since March 2006, but Mr Cameron's spokesman denied that he was panicking after some negative recent publicity and a downturn in the polls. Some of the changes were forced by Mr Brown's restructuring of Whitehall last week. "We believe effectively in man-to-man marking," Mr Davis told Radio 4.

But Francis Maude, the party chairman, and David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, paid the price for earning the rank and file's wrath by being pushed to minor roles within Mr Cameron's top team. Mr Maude, loathed by local associations for his attempt to assert more control from the centre, will shadow Ed Miliband at the Cabinet Office with a brief to work out how the Tories implement their policies in government. Mr Willetts gets innovation, universities and skills, the quieter half of the education portfolio that was split in two by Mr Brown last week. His speech in May which argued that grammar schools entrenched advantage was not much more than a restatement of official policy but created the biggest internal party row of Mr Cameron's 20 months as leader. Hugo Swire, the outgoing culture secretary, has been sacked for a more obvious error - suggesting that the Tories would allow free museums to charge. Others removed from the shadow cabinet are Oliver Heald, spokesman for constitutional affairs, and David Lidington, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary. But Mr Lidington is allowed to attend shadow cabinet as a spokesman on security within the shadow Foreign Office team.

Three of the most effective spokesmen from the class of 2005 join the shadow cabinet: Michael Gove will shadow Ed Balls at children, schools and families; Nick Herbert moves from police reform to shadow justice secretary, and Jeremy Hunt takes Mr Swire's job at culture in recognition of his work on disabled issues. Caroline Spelman, the new Conservative chairman, is regarded favourably by colleagues without being automatically picked out as a star. But she is a bright TV performer and the new job encourages her to offer a breezy, optimistic outlook to swing voters. Mr Cameron's spokesman said her appointment to replace Mr Maude reflected a change in role, from the internal focus of her predecessor to an outward-looking pitch to voters. She is likely to be a regular on the broadcast media as Mr Cameron attempts to counter any electoral advantage won by Labour from Harriet Harman's election as deputy leader. Mrs Spelman, Ms Warsi and Dame Pauline join Theresa May, Theresa Villiers and Cheryl Gillan in the shadow cabinet.

Grant Shapps, another bright spark who joined the Commons in 2005, becomes housing spokesman and will attend the shadow cabinet. In a nod to the old guard, Mr Cameron promoted Eric Pickles to the shadow cabinet as shadow communities and local government secretary. The "Pickles rules" strategy of refusing to attack Liberal Democrats too hard in the hope of picking up their supporters helped the Tories to more than 900 council seat gains in May.

A Labour spokesman said: "This panicky reshuffle marks David Cameron's great retreat to the right, leaving the centre ground free to Gordon Brown and the Labour party. Cameron has handed the reactionary wing of his party the scalps they were looking for in demoting Francis Maude and David Willetts."

Ins and outs

Pauline Neville-Jones

The former head of the joint intelligence committee and political director at the Foreign Office has been handed a peerage and drafted straight into the shadow cabinet as security spokeswoman after impressing David Cameron on one of the party's policy commissions. Aged 67, she took the lead in presenting a controversial report from the national and international security group on Islamic extremism, which condemned the Muslim Council of Britain. Some thought her attack on multiculturalism a little other-worldly. There could be tensions with David Davis, the shadow home secretary: she is reportedly in favour of ID cards.

Michael Gove

After clashing across the despatch box with Yvette Cooper - exchanges which did neither of their careers any harm - Mr Gove now takes on the housing minister's husband, Ed Balls, shadowing the new children, schools and families spokesman. A moderniser and a neocon, Mr Gove gave up a stellar career on the Times newspaper for the choppier waters of parliament. But supported by a rock-solid Surrey Heath seat, he has prospered in parliament and still turns his hand to a weekly Times column. His performances in taking on the government over home information packs can be counted as among the few Conservative successes in the Commons in recent months.

Sayeeda Warsi

The first woman Muslim parliamentary candidate for the Conservatives is to become a peer, which means she will miss out on her ambition to become the party's first woman Muslim MP. Nonetheless, she becomes the first Muslim to join either the shadow cabinet or cabinet. Born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, she went to the local college and set up a solicitors' practice there after graduation. David Cameron appointed her Tory vice-chair and charged her with reinvigorating the party in the cities. Her Labour opponent in Dewsbury in 2005, Shahid Malik, last week joined the Department for International Development as Britain's first Muslim minister.

Francis Maude

The outgoing Conservative chairman has been banging the modernisers' drum since David Cameron was knee-high to a grasshopper. Sporting open-necked shirt and constantly urging the party to reach out to the centre ground, Mr Maude has been the cause of, and the lightning conductor for, much of the rank and file's dissent. But even Mr Cameron has wearied of his lugubriousness, evident last year when Mr Maude admitted the Tories may well not win the next election. The botched A-list of headquarters-supported parliamentary candidates and a farcical selection process for the party's choice for London mayor have counted against him too.

Hugo Swire

The outgoing shadow culture secretary paid the price for the kind of 24-carat gaffe that wins no friends. Mr Swire told the Mail on Sunday last month that "museums and galleries should have the right to charge if they wish"; such thinking out of the box handed a gift to Labour. Yesterday's move gives him the chance to spend more time with his litter: Mr Swire, a farmer, recently auctioned a prize black pig for £10,000. Though he is eight years older than his fellow old Etonian Mr Cameron, the two have been close. Mr Swire was one of the first to canvass for him before the Conservative leadership election in 2005.

David Willetts

Thoughtful, friendly, popular with reporters, Mr Willetts has displayed misjudgments - and some bad luck - that seem destined to consign him to no more than the middle ranks of Mr Cameron's team. He was close to high office under John Major before a committee of MPs skewered him over an apparent attempt to interfere in the cash-for-questions inquiry. His second spell covering schools in opposition has ended unhappily after a furious reaction to a speech in May. Mr Willetts restated existing party policy not to promise new grammar schools, but infuriated the rank and file and colleagues by insisting that academic selection entrenched advantage. Cue a firestorm the like of which David Cameron had not seen.